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Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

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Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#501
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being Jewish is also multi-tiered because it's associated with both a religion and an ethnicity. I'd love to popularize being thought of Ashkenazi and not Jewish. I don't have a familial bond with Israel for probably 17 centuries and I don't really care if I ever did. My culture is more strongly associated with Eastern Europe and we were run out of town on a rail 100 years ago.

Ashkenazi is just an old hebrew word for German. If you strip away both Germany (the HRE, more specifically), and Judaism then the term doesn't have much meaning. At least, not as an identity that people have assumed historically. Ashkenazi Jews before the war just called themselves Jews, with secular emancipationists often appending nationality.

The etymology of the word "Ashkenazi" is irrelevant (argument from etymology is a fallacy), as for a long time now the word has been used in a different, wider meaning. And Ashkenazi is a valid distinction versus e.g. Sephardi Jews: Ashkenazi Jews used a different reading for Hebrew, adopted different codes of dress, employed different structures of doctrinal authority and hermeneutics of Scripture, etc.

Naturally under the Ashkenazi umbrella there were people of different cultures (and different degrees of assimilation to the surrounding non-Jewish population), but those Jews were still more similar to one another than to non-Ashkenazi Jews.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#502

His bigotry goes beyond anti-semitism. Kamau Bobb's blog posts were almost exclusively about White and Jewish people, as a whole, and their mistreatment of Black Americans both historically and today. He even targets progressive white people for their more unspoken racism. There is a very obvious tone of distaste for white and Jewish people in his posts. Search for the word "white" or "Jew" in his blog [1] posts to s…

Do you believe the acknowledgement of race or racial difference to be intrinsically bigoted?

> acknowledgement of race or racial difference

Acknowledgment of race is inherently an essentialist position; that there is an essence to being a certain race that sets it apart from other races. Doesn't matter if that position casts the purported essence in a positive or negative light, it is bigotry in one way or the other.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#503

The main thing I find odd about that person's blog post ( https://web.archive.org/web/20210601160519/https://www.kamau... ) is that it also doesn't really make any sense mechanically. The first five paragraphs are all comments on how it must be difficult for a progressive Jew to simultaneously support progressive values and Israel > If I were a Jew today, my sensibilities would be tormented. I would find it increasin…

Thank you for sharing the full post. It indeed does have a different tone when taken as a whole. It's far too common for people to dig out half a sentence from hundreds of blog posts you've written over a decade ago, intentionally omitting everything else.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#504

His bigotry goes beyond anti-semitism. Kamau Bobb's blog posts were almost exclusively about White and Jewish people, as a whole, and their mistreatment of Black Americans both historically and today. He even targets progressive white people for their more unspoken racism. There is a very obvious tone of distaste for white and Jewish people in his posts. Search for the word "white" or "Jew" in his blog [1] posts to s…

Has anyone else noticed how often the loudest voices have the most baggage in the very subject they advocate against?

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#505

In a sane world there would be no such position as "head of diversity."

Very true.

It is a vague and meaningless concept. It has never been defined except by referring to antiquated notions of “race” stemming primarily from 18th and 19th century ideas.

In modern times, we’ve apparently added biological sex, sexual preference and a vague (and meaningless) concept of self-identity that can, apparently, cross all other definitions with impunity - even changing fluidly throughout the day.

To appoint people as “head” of this mess of ideas point to deeper issues in the organization.

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#506
post #37

Slightly shocking that he didn't get fired. (yet?) They fired Damore for writing an email that was tone-deaf, insensitive, but largely supported by research. Bobb goes on a clearly antisemitic rant, and just gets reassigned. Is Google inconsistent, or has their policy on how to deal with these things changed over the past few years?

> They fired Damore for writing an email that was tone-deaf, insensitive, but largely supported by research Damore was asked for his feedback on Google's diversity policies, and that's exactly what he provided. Most of Damore's critics haven't actually read his memo[1], but rather formed an opinion based on the character assassination campaign against him, a campaign his employer publicly sided with. Over the 4 years…

I'd assume they'd just direct you to the NLRB findings that Damore's firing was lawful.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K1JRtRYBLyhhgkJLXnW2Nxjo5Bn...

"... statements about immutable traits linked to sex - such as women's heightened neuroticism and men's prevalence at the top of the IQ distribution - were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment..."

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the argument certain Native Americans use to say that they are the only ones whose home is America. Do you see how this argument makes you look?

Saying that Israel is a jewish homeland does not necessarily mean that it is not anyone else's home. It does to some, but they are an extreme minority. It's also contrary to our declaration of independence. I'm not american, but I'll hazard a guess that "certain Native Americans" who take this position are also more often assumed than real.

The history of Israel is centered around a rebellion to prevent the other people who lived there from getting joint rule. Just look at the history - this is the document that prompted the Jewish insurgency in mandatory palestine. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939#Content

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#508
post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe the acknowledgement of race or racial difference to be intrinsically bigoted?

Yes. Kids don't see skin color the way these ideologues do. They look at it like hair color. My twin brother and I were literally the only white kids on our school bus, attending mostly black public schools in a mostly black county in southeastern Virginia. We were never really aware of skin color as a thing, just "this kid let's us borrow his gameboy and is nice", vs. "this kid punches us in the back of the head on…

Through my childhood I would agree with you. By the time I was in high school this was no longer the case. Had many black friends, and once we all pass puberty and got cars, the world changed.

The first time I was with a black friend who got pulled over for no reason, and seeing the cop visibly change his demeanor when he saw me (white clean cut male) in the passenger seat, changed me. Talked with my friend after - this was already normalized for him. I was angry beyond belief.

It’s a useless proxy for judgement and yet US society does it to black and hispanic people with alarming consistency and frequency. It hasn’t gotten better since my youth.

This is the crux of white privilege and why “cancel culture” is bullshit for snowflakes who can’t imagine that the world is as systematically unjust as it really is.

I’ve listened to many black activists who ARE anti-white, who do self segregate, and I don’t blame any of them for a second nor hold any animosity towards them. They spent their lives being lied to, despised, tricked, and crapped on. Why would anyone want to continue that cycle?

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#509
post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe the acknowledgement of race or racial difference to be intrinsically bigoted?

My intuition from reading these quotes is that this person spent a lot of time thinking about socioeconomic differences in relation to race[0], so they see things through that lens. It can come off as hostile, but the more generous interpretation that they simply emphasize this theme. [0] I dislike the term "race" in these contexts. In biological terms there is only one human race currently alive as far as we know. E…

About [0], in Portuguese we have abolished the usage of the term "race" for human beings for exactly that reason. Now we exclusively use the term "ethnicity".

Edit: What about the downvotes? Are people going crazy?

Re: Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces

#510
post #51

For anyone who is interested, the actual blog post on his website was deleted. It's available on the Way Back Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20210601160519/https://www.kamau...

Interesting. I wasn't sure about blacks' position relative to jews on the oppression stack. I guess jews are actually above them (i.e. blacks cannot criticize jews the way they can whites)? Was this always the case? As I recall, Louis Farrakhan gets away with worse.

Louis Farrakhan can't be cancelled. He doesn't work for a corporation that can fire him, and he doesn't rely on the media to spread his message.
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